Shared Electric Vehicles and Other Alternative Transportation

According to the EPA, the leading cause of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG’s for short) is transportation. It accounts for 29% of total global GHG emissions. These emissions are not only dangerous for the environment, but are dangerous for us as well. GHG emissions can lead to adverse health effects from cancer causing carcinogens and chemicals, many of which come from exhaust emissions. There are many ways to get around this world and some of them are even healthy and fun. Hillside is working to combat GHG emissions by innovating transportation; offering residents access to shared electric vehicles (or EVs) and alternative transportation methods. 

Hillside is strategically situated to be close to alternative transportation options. The first map shows a bus stop within 0.3 miles (a 2-minute bike ride or a 6-minute walk). This service runs seven days a week throughout Newburyport and the neighboring towns of Amesbury and Salisbury. In addition to the bus stop, the Newburyport / Rockport Line train is located .8 miles away (7 minutes by bike and 17 walking). The commuter rail leads to North Station in Boston and several other stops along the east coast of Massachusetts. Hillside is also located next to the Clipper City Rail Trail, a lovely walking trail that allows residents access by foot or bike to Newburyport's city center. They can find restaurants, galleries, shops, salons, Sunday's farmers market, and much more there. With these easy alternative transportation options, there is less need to travel short and long distances in a car. Instead, residents can get some fresh air and reap the health benefits while reducing their personal emissions. 

And for those frequent times when there is a need to travel by car, Hillside offers residents a Shared Electric Vehicles program. At Hillside, a fleet of electric vehicles powered by on-site solar are made available to residents to share. Electric cars produce no tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions, greatly benefiting a community's air quality. That being said, the truth about electric cars is that depending on the energy source used through manufacturing and charging processes, electric vehicles can produce a similar amount of CO2 to standard vehicles over their lifetime. Unless they are powered by renewable energy sources like our on-site solar charging stations, because of this factor, these vehicles' overall emissions are significantly less than those of gas-powered vehicles. 

Our Hillside on-site solar EVs will do you one better with a little something called car sharing. While electric transportation offers significant environmental benefits, shared vehicles take these efforts a step further. Research by UC Berkeley showed that one shared vehicle from car2go (a shared car company) removed 11 personal vehicles from the road (Transportation Sustainability Research Center). Mind you, the goal of this program is not to eliminate the use of a personal car, but to reduce the number of cars needed per family. By coupling electric vehicles with shared transportation, we can offer Hillside residents the ability to have the least possible transportation emissions.